End of the road for Cash for Clunkers

Aug. 20: As dealers across the country fume about the slow pace of reimbursements, the government on Thursday announced that the popular Cash for Clunkers program will end Monday. NBC's Tom Costello reports.

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This content comes from a Full-Text Transcript of the program.

ANN CURRY, anchor:There is word from
Washington
that the cash for clunkers
program
will end on Monday, just four days from now. The popular, multibillion-dollar
program
, which has already been extended once, is coming to
the end of the road
less than five
weeks
after it began.
NBC
's
Tom Costello
now joins us from
Washington
with more on this.
Tom
:

TOM COSTELLO reporting:Hi, Ann. Good evening. It's likely to be a busy weekend at dealerships. Car owners can get up to $4500 for trading in a clunker for a new, more fuel efficient car. Well, at
8 PMEastern time
on Monday, all that application paperwork must be submitted. The
program
comes to an end.

Unidentified Woman:Sounds good.

Unidentified Man #1:Thanks for buying at
Westfield Ford
.

COSTELLO:Calling it one of the most successful short-term economic
stimulus
programs, the
White House
today said it's time to start winding down its cash for clunkers
program
.

President BARACK OBAMA:It has been successful beyond anybody's imagination.

COSTELLO:Dealers and the
government
have been overwhelmed.
As of today
, the cash for clunkers
program
has recorded more than 457,000 dealer transactions, worth $1.9 billion in rebates.

COSTELLO:But the
government
admits it's processed fewer than half the rebate allocations, and many must be resubmitted by
8 PM
Monday after the forms were filled out incorrectly, all of it leaving most participating dealers out thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars as they wait to get paid.

Unidentified Man #2:Let me go
and get the key.

COSTELLO:In
Sarasota
,
John Tubersky
has sold some 50 cars under the
program
.

Mr. JOHN TUBERSKY:We have well over a quarter million dollars right now invested. So we're -- we think that hopefully soon, you know, we'll start to get some more of that
money
. You know, we're confident that the
government
's going to come through, but they've just been a
little
bit slow.

COSTELLO:Again today the president insisted the dealers will get their
money
.

Pres. OBAMA:I think this is actually a high class
problem
to have that we're selling too many cars too quickly, and there's some backlog in the application process. It is getting fixed.

COSTELLO:Of the $3 billion budgeted for this
program
, the
government
has only paid out $145 million. Critics say the
government
should not be involved in this kind of a
program
, of buying
used cars
. They call it a giveaway.
Ann
, back to you.